Turning Point
by hecatesbrat
Summary: You know the Parade and those events? Yeah, something different happens. It's sort of a stopping point for the Squall Is Dead theory. I also realize fully that the Sorceress isn't suppose to die until the powers are passed onto another.


His mind felt like it was wrapped in cotton, forcing thought and movement to become slower than they should have been. Part of his mind was still trying to process what he was doing there, on a float in Deling city. He could remember leaving Garden and being at the TV station, wanting to help even if it didn't seem that way in their eyes. Remembered Quistis showing up with Squall and someone else, maybe Chicken-wuss? There was yelling and a blade held against that piss ant excuse of a President but there was more, wasn't there? The kiss burn of magic that wound it's way into his brain, coiling as it seduced and played on his wants, dreams and desires like a snake feeding on a mouse. Taking it in, swallowing it down with it's unhinged jaws.

 _Why can't I remember after that? Why the hell is everything so cloudy? Where the fuck am I and what is Rinoa doing here? What is Squall doing here? This doesn't feel right anymore._ Even the face of the Sorceress that stood beside him looked familiar but he couldn't place it; maybe it was the woman in the picture framed on Cid's desk. He couldn't remember through the haze.

It was better to keep the sneer on his face and watch, because really, he couldn't do more than that right now. She kept him trapped, pinned like a moth on velvet boards for display, flayed open for all to see. The only thing missing would be the magnifying glass that would burn his skin like the ants that were set on fire when he was younger. It would come in time but right now, they were speaking and Ultimecia who wore a familiar stranger's face, spoke back in her sharp hissing, hard K-clipped words.

Through the linked bond Seifer could see what his Sorceress was going to do, seen what her plan of attack was but that sliver of time showed more than what he could ever hope to see: the death of Squall; the fall of his world as he knew it; then the destruction of time leaving all but Ultimecia alive, bodies of his friends, former Cadets and himself lay at her feet, all dead. That bit of time, that fraction of a second's breath showed him that this is not what he wanted. There was no fame, no glory, no fairytale storybook greatness for him and that lie angered him. Her words of fame and glory of being a powerful Knight turned to ash on his tongue.

Seifer blinked as deja vu overtook him and could feel the cloud-cotton tear away, paper thin scraps in a tornado. He knew what he needed to do to ensure his future. He seen her hand come up, seen the ice crystals form at her fingertips then shoot out aimed for Squall but he didn't feel powerless to stop it; nothing but confidence, and not the false bravado he'd sometimes hide behind, filled him.

All it took was another sliver of a second to pull Ultimecia's arm away from her intended target and for Hyperion's blade to find it's home deep inside her body. Ultimecia's magic flew almost wide and struck Rinoa through the heart. Events happened in simultaneous fashion: blood sprayed and women screamed; one in rage and frustration and the other in surprised pain before falling silent.

The tall gunblader barely flinched when the Sorceress-puppet's blood sprayed on his face and jacket or when the blade gutted her body and let it fall to the float they stood on.

"Almasy." Squall's voice was hushed but the blonde heard it above the din of screaming crowds and turned towards his rival.

"Leonhart." There was nothing for him to say. He felt no need to explain himself at the moment and Squall wasn't asking any questions.

Squall sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, thoughts and plans of how to deal with a failed-time-for-plan-b assassination attempt of a Sorceress were effectively put to rest. Any formulation of upcoming plans were halted when he heard his rival's voice cut through like a blade.

"I want to go home. I don't know what I'm doing here. This is bullshit."

Squall only blinked and sighed; the lies of Seifer's execution would have to be sifted through, as well as the deaths of both women but that was something that could done behind the walls of Garden, not out in the public. Quistis was already on her phone requesting a clean up crew for Rinoa and the Sorceress's bodies. He wasn't thinking of General Caraway's possible reactions to the death of his daughter or other possible ramifications that the mission could have brought up.

Grey eyes watched as Seifer cleaned his blade and slide it home into it's sheath under his jacket. With another pinch to the bridge of his nose and a sigh, he listened to Quistis's report about the clean up and time frames and thought that going home was a good idea.

"We're done here. Let's go home."


End file.
